The present invention relates to a channel selection method for a television receiver and an apparatus therefor, and particularly to a method and apparatus for automatically selecting all broadcasting channels.
A conventional television (TV) set or a video cassette recorder (VCR) has an automatic channel selection function. The apparatus having an automatic channel selection function will be described below with reference to FIG. 1.
A controller 13 of FIG. 1 generates channel information to perform a fine tuning operation with respect to all TV broadcast bands. In order to automatically tune the lowest frequency of all the TV broadcast bands up to the highest frequency thereof, controller 13 sequentially generates channel information each of which has a frequency value increased by a predetermined interval starting from the lowest frequency value. Respective channel information is supplied to tuner 11 in the form of pulse-width-modulated data. Tuner 11 performs a frequency tuning operation according to a tuning voltage corresponding to the respective channel information supplied from controller 13, and outputs respective reception channel information representing a channel through which a TV broadcast signal is received to controller 13. Controller 13 controls storage of the reception channel information in a non-volatile memory 19. Such a signal processing is performed with respect to all the channel information which are sequentially generated by controller 13. Memory 19 sequentially stores the reception channel information with respect to the VHF channel having the lowest frequency up to the UHF channel having the highest frequency, according to input sequence. Tuner 11 converts a radio frequency (RF) signal received from an antenna into an intermediate frequency (IF) signal and outputs the IF signal to a demodulator 15. Demodulator 15 separates the input IF signal into audio and video signals and outputs the separated audio and video signals. An automatic gain controller (AGC) 16 in demodulator 15 provides a video signal of a constant level as the output of demodulator 15, although the level of the IF signal supplied from tuner 11 varies widely. The AGC value generated for such a gain control is fedback to tuner 11.
Since the broadcast channels are, however, usually differently received according to the local areas, the conventional automatic selection apparatus tends to select the broadcast channels of adjacent local areas. Accordingly, an identical broadcast program can be received via various channels. For this reason, when the selection is sequentially accomplished from the lower frequency to the higher frequency and the reception channel information resulting from the selection is also arranged in sequence, the channels other than a channel of which the reception state is the most excellent with respect to the same broadcast, should be manually deleted, which causes inconvenience to users.